Saturday, 24 October 2009

It was a good decision to rip out and reknit part of this project. It has taken almost a week to catch up, but I like the way it looks a lot better now.

I'm not sure how to continue, though. There's no lack of ideas, it's rather a matter of choosing the right one; even if I don't mind ripping out and reknitting I'd rather not if it can be avoided...

The best thing is probably to let it rest for a while and work with some other projects. There's no lack of works in progress either.

Or lack of yarn, for that matter: I just went through my stash (well, part of it) and discovered a couple of skeins identical to some yarn I found too beautiful to resist the other day, especially since I was sure I had never seen those shades before. It seems I'm even better at fooling myself than I thought, which is a bit worrying. Or promising!

Sunday, 18 October 2009

Moving from border to body I kept the number of stitches but changed needles from 2½ to 3 mm (US 1½ & 2½) and let the lines of the border pattern continue and form new patterns. I like it when different pattern sections blend.

What I didn't quite like was the main pattern I had come up with. Some details looked far better on paper and in my imagination than they did in reality, so I ripped out 15 rows – more than 6,000 stitches... It's annoying, but not nearly as annoying as seeing things in a finished sweater that I was too lazy to change.

I'm happy with how it looks in this photo, which I took after picking up the stitches again.

I envy my fingers – unlike me they remember things so well! Once I got started with the pattern it was almost like typing, and a favourite movie helped making this a quick knit: Woody Allen's Match Point is so compelling (even the the third time) I knitted faster than usual.

Short notes about the construction:

1. Knitted in one piece until I reached the armholes, then divided into three sections.2. Armholes shaped using short rows.3. Back and front joined using a three-needle bind-off and knitting a neck gusset (which I learnt from Alice Starmore's Fishermen's Sweaters). Picture here.4. Stitches picked up around the armholes for a garter-stitch edging.5. I picked up stitches along front; then knitted gusset stitches, back stitches and gusset stitches; then picked up stitches along other front. All stitches knitted back and forth for garter stitch edging.

Friday, 2 October 2009

Feeling a bit cold this morning I borrowed a grey vest that I knitted for my mother some five years ago and which is too big for her. The length is fine and she likes wearing it, but it gives her "wings".

Guess what? It turns out to be exactly my size, so we've decided I'll knit her a new one. There is enough of some beautiful heathery blue wool from Morjärv that's been in my stash for quite a while, waiting patiently for the right project.

As the grey vest is pre-Ravelry I don't have any notes – or I don't know where they are and probably wouldn't recognize them if they turned up – and that wool is a lot thicker, my challenges for this project are:

1) reconstructing the two patterns, since I don't own the book where I found them (Vogue Dictionary of Knitting Stitches by Anne Matthews);2) figuring out where and how often to increase to get them to blend (the ribbing and main pattern repeats consist of different number of stitches);3) knit a different size with different, thinner wool and a different gauge – and place the pattern so it becomes symmetrical;4) last but not least, get the size right this time!

In addition, I'm knitting this vest in one piece instead of three. Why? To try it! Haven't knitted an open vest that way before.

Wearing and studying the grey vest takes me back to the time when I was knitting it. It was summer and I was staying at a colleague's house while she and her husband were away. They have a wonderful little garden where I spent many hours knitting, reading and picking berries. Strawberries, gooseberries, red and black currants, blueberries... Heaven.